with something that really would give him some insight into who she was and what she did. She didn’t think revealing this would give him too much leverage against her.
“About three years ago, I was teaching a class on investing over at the recreation center. There was a woman in the class who sat in the back at the beginning. She had almost no money, in fact, I think she was homeless and begged for change on the streets.”
“You really do teach investing?” he asked, leaning his forearms on the table and watching her closely, trying to see if this was a genuine story or if she was making it up just to annoy him again.
“I really am a teacher,” she confirmed with a self-satisfied grin. “I teach four days a week, three classes a day. Some of the classes are only about twenty people, but we take up to fifty in a class, trying to serve as many as possible without the whole period becoming too insane.”
“That’s interesting. So the whole thing about the mystery writer was a smoke screen, huh?” he chuckled and shook his head. “I didn’t believe either.”
Eva didn’t respond, didn’t tell him that she also wrote mysteries and had several books already published, her latest doing extremely well on the charts.
“Are you going to let me finish the story?” she asked, raising her eyebrows.
“By all means, please continue.”
“This woman was actually in the back because she couldn’t afford to bathe and didn’t want anyone to have to deal with her smell. The classes are free and we don’t have any prerequisites for taking the class, as long as the attendees behave.”
“But she was really a very wealthy woman who was just trying to get some insider tips?” he interrupted, trying to guess the end of the story.
Eva laughed and shook her head. “Not even close. She really was homeless, she couldn’t afford any place to sleep and she stunk horribly.” When she knew he wasn’t going to interrupt again, she continued. “This lady strolled in about ten minutes before the class started and stayed probably thirty minutes after the class ended so I was assuming she had simply found a place off the street that wasn’t dangerous, had air conditioning and she could find someone to talk to.”
“Who was she?”
“I didn’t know her real name initially, but she brought in forty Euros worth of coins and asked me to open up a trading account in her name. Since she didn’t have any identification, we worked with an electronic firm and established an account with me as the official name but no power over the account. Every day she would bring in more coins to invest, sometimes she only had enough for one stock and the fee but she had a well thought out strategy. Over time, she had enough in her account to put half the money down on a house.”
“You’re kidding me,” he replied, truly seeming to be surprised by the story.
“Not kidding. All of us over at the recreation center helped her in one way or another, sometimes by just offering her a place to shower.”
“So the happiest day of your life was when she was in her own home?”
“No. The happiest day of my life was when she brought her daughter to that home and showed her what she’d done and the daughter burst into tears. The elderly woman completely changed, going from a homeless woman who drank most of the day to a clean, if simply dressed woman who owned her own home and made her living off of carefully investing in the stock markets. She is an example for all of us and she comes back to the center for different classes, and sometimes we ask her to come back just as a motivational speaker. Her name is Mirza Holliday.”
He looked at her curiously. “Why does that name ring a bell?”
“Because she was featured in the newspaper last year, a full spread about her life and what she’s accomplished.”
“Impressive.” He really was amazed that the happiest day of her life wasn’t a day she’d found the perfect pair of shoes to match her dress or that a certain purse was released on the market and she was the first to obtain it. He’d actually endured some of his previous partners regale him with those kinds of stories, as if that accomplishment was noteworthy in some respect.
“So what was the saddest?” she asked gently, sincerely interested in this man she’d pushed